The previous price for this item was 129.99. Your price for this item is 109.99. User rating, 4.7 out of 5 stars with 257 reviews. WD - My Passport for Mac 4TB External USB 3.0 Portable Hard Drive - Blue.Open Windows File Explorer, locate and right-click on WD My Passport that you need to format, select 'Format'. Best Malware Removal and Protection SoftwareIf it is larger than 32GB, you can only format it to exFAT. Acronis True Image WD Edition Software, Windows & Mac Compatible, May Require Reformatting Before Use.I would be extremely surprised to find there was any actual difference in the hardware between the two. Micro Center is.Before we get to Thunderbolt 3, we need to address a basic building block of hard drives that has always affected compatibility, and probably always will: the file system.As I posted above WD do a My Passport Windows and a My Passport Mac. Click 'Start' to begin the formatting.Uniquely focused on computers and related products, Micro Center offers more computers and electronic devices than any other retailer.
It's simply called the Apple File System (APFS), and it's the first format to be used across both Macs and iOS devices.WD 3TB My Passport Wireless Pro USB 3.0 External Hard Drive exFAT is a good option if you work often with Windows and Mac computers. With the release of the macOS High Sierra operating system, Cupertino ditched its venerable Mac OS Extended file system, commonly abbreviated as HFS+, and switched to an entirely new file system. An external drive's file system is the most important factor that determines whether or not it's readable by Macs, PCs, or both. If you really fancy a consumer-oriented drive formatted for Windows (which will usually pre-formatted in the NTFS format), you can use the Disk Utility in macOS to reformat it after you bring it home from the store. You won't get the security and efficiency of APFS, but you will get the convenience of being able to transfer files back and forth between Windows and macOS simply by plugging in and unplugging your drive.Of course, you can easily reformat most external drives, so you're not limited to buying only those intended for use with Macs. If you plan to use your external drive with computers that run both operating systems, you should consider formatting your drive with the exFAT file system. Any drive formatted with HFS+ will work just fine with a Mac that's running macOS High Sierra or later.Neither Apple File System nor HFS+ works with Windows, however. (See our overall picks for favorite external SSDs.)One major downside, however, is that they're more expensive. Their small size means they can often fit into a jacket or pants pocket, which makes them a better choice if you're looking for a portable external drive that you'll be carrying with you frequently. SSDs are often smaller and lighter than spinning external drives, as well, which is also thanks to the lack of moving parts. Each has its advantages and disadvantages, and—unlike the file system—the type you buy is the type you're stuck with for the life of the drive.A solid-state drive (SSD) offers quick access to your data because it stores your bits in a type of flash memory rather than on spinning platters. Spinning PlattersOnce you've settled on a file system, you then have to determine which storage medium you want: solid-state or spinning disk. Does Wd My Passport Require Formatting For Use With S Movie Buffs WhoYou'll pay handsomely, of course—some Mac-specific arrays cost thousands of dollars.On the other hand, if you're looking to buy an external drive mainly to back up your files ( which you should definitely do) and it will rarely leave your home office, an inexpensive spinning drive will work just fine. (Or both it depends on how the array is set up.) The result is that you can get SSD-like speeds, with throughput of more than 400MBps, and capacities that top out close to 50TB. An array contains two or more drives that all work together to increase throughput, or guard your precious files against corruption via drive redundancy if one of the drives fail. Compare that with external spinning drives, which are easy to find even in capacities in excess of 8TB for desktop-style drives, or up to 5TB for portable ones.For professional videographers who edit lots of 4K footage and gamers or movie buffs who have large libraries of multi-gigabyte titles, an external RAID array made up of multiple platter-based drives is worth considering, since it combines the near-speed of an SSD with the gargantuan possible capacities of spinning drives. External SSDs also have lower capacity limits, with most drives topping out at 2TB. Is windows free for macThe silver lining is that Thunderbolt 3 via USB Type-C supports a blazing maximum potential throughput of 40Gbps, double the speed of the old Thunderbolt 2 standard and many times the 5GBps that USB 3.0 offers. But what happens when you throw yet another variable into the mix: the connection between your drive and your Mac? As you might have guessed, the answer is more tradeoffs.Every current Mac laptop comes with oval-shaped USB Type-C ports that support Thunderbolt 3, but other than a headphone jack, they are the only connectivity options available, which means you'll need an adapter to plug in any device that doesn't have a USB Type-C cable. Does Thunderbolt 3 Matter, or Will USB-C Do?So, to recap: Faster, smaller (both physically and in terms of gigabytes) solid-state drives come at a premium, while spinning drives offer a much better value while sacrificing speed. Portable drives don't have a power plug they get the juice they need to run through their data interface. Desktop-style external hard drives are larger, are based on the beefier and more capacious 3.5-inch drives used in full-size desktop PCs, and require their own AC power source. These kinds of components in newer drives help Thunderbolt 3 reach more of its speed potential. While older external SSDs have been limited by the internal electronics (generally a drive and controller using the older Serial ATA bus inside the drive), late-model drives use different internal components, based on PCI Express drives using the NVMe protocol. That's more than fast enough for backups and occasionally transferring multi-gigabyte files, but many times lower than Thunderbolt 3's maximum throughput.However, that speed ceiling is rising. Until recently, most external SSDs topped out at around 600MBps, for instance, due to the traditional bus types in that drives inside the chassis used. Moreover, the Thunderbolt 3 drives you can buy are constrained by the maximum throughput of the drive itself, rather than the Thunderbolt 3 interface. Even some Mac-specific drives are still sold with USB 3.0 connectors. Other External-Drive ConsiderationsDrives intended for PCs sometimes come bundled with software that will automatically back up your files to the drive when it's connected, but such software isn't as much of a consideration for Mac users, who already have an excellent built-in backup option in the form of Time Machine. And Mac desktops all still come with USB 3.0 ports, so they won't require adapters. With USB-only drives, some manufacturers include a USB Type-C cable for people who own a USB Type-C-only MacBook, and you can always pick up a converter for a few dollars online if the drive you're eyeing doesn't offer one. (Again, see our roundup of the best external SSDs for more discussion of this.)You can insist on Thunderbolt 3 support if you have a late-model Mac and you know you need all the speed you can get, but a USB-C drive will be a better pick if you're more price sensitive, or need to also use the drive with a PC. ![]() Many others feature copious amounts of aluminum and industrial-chic styling to match the design cues of your MacBook or iMac.
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